


Latent Image

by what_alchemy



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Fluff, Genderqueer Character, Other, Photography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:01:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23048962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_alchemy/pseuds/what_alchemy
Summary: Latent image: an image on exposed film which has not yet been made visible by the developing process.orFrancis Crozier and James Fitzjames sit for their portrait.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 50
Kudos: 163





	Latent Image

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jouissant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/gifts).



> Happy birthday to Jouissant—best possible brain twin!

Francis opened his wardrobe to an expansive collection of brocaded silk waistcoats in various colors. James’s precise vocabulary for them was as flamboyant as the colors themselves: amethyst or vermilion or cerulean or what have you. They had been made bespoke for him on Savile Row, each with a matching cravat, to be worn with a fitted frock coat and perhaps a top hat.

Francis had never imagined himself a clotheshorse. Had never imagined himself the type of man to cut a dashing figure in anything, even his dress uniform. Utility: that’s what clothes were for. To keep oneself respectable. To hide the shame of one’s nudity. He had always made an effort to look clean and put together, but the fashion of it both eluded and bored him. What did it matter what any of it was called or which colors went with which so long as he didn’t embarrass himself?

Taking up with James had not changed his mind on the subject, but living with—and indulging—him had transformed Francis’s wardrobe regardless. Now he stood before his mirror growing increasingly cantankerous at being confronted with a selection that was far too broad. How could any one man need this much? He huffed and fancied he went blind upon beholding it all.

“James!” he called. “Which one did you want me to wear!”

There was no answer. He grumbled at himself and met his own reflection in the mirror. He snorted at what he saw there: thinning hair sapped of any color it might once have had, face littered with lines and crags and bags more fit for the surface of the moon than someone about to be immortalized on a silver plate. He shook his head and dropped his gaze from the mirror. 

The waistcoats were mocking him.

He stomped out of their quarters and down the corridor to James’s dressing room, where he rapped on the door with more verve than was strictly necessary.

“Yes?” James’s voice was muffled.

“Which waistcoat and cravat am I to wear for this farce?”

There was no answer but for the thump of a chair and then footfall. Francis stepped back, fixing a scowl on his face, but it melted away when James opened the door. He was in naught but bloomers and an unlaced corset, but his hair was smooth and curled and shone a deep, polished mahogany in the listing afternoon sunshine that filled the room. Francis leaned against the jamb and stared at him, slack-jawed.

James tilted his head and smirked.

“What was that now?” he said, tone arch.

“I—” Francis croaked, and cleared his throat. James looked far too pleased. “I forgot which color you wanted me to wear.”

“The sapphire,” James said. “Just like the last three times you asked.”

“All the blues look the same!” As far as Francis was concerned, there were only sky blue and navy, and all those in between were pompous little upstarts.

James swung the door wide and stepped back.

“Lace me up and I’ll go pick it out for you.”

Francis stepped inside. James had hung one of his dresses up on the outside of his wardrobe—a deep red one that presented the graceful line of James’s clavicle in a way Francis found almost unbearably beguiling. The cage crinoline, however, was consigned to a dressmaker’s mannequin in the corner of the room.

Francis took his place behind James as he braced himself against the wardrobe. Their eyes met in the mirror. James jerked his chin up in a nod and took a deep breath. Francis yanked the laces. James swayed with the force of it, like a sapling in the breeze. Francis pressed himself into James’s shapely arse, and watched James’s eyelashes flutter in the mirror. 

“No hoop today?” Francis asked as he went up each rung.

“No,” James said, breathless. “Petticoats and nothing more, I think. For sitting.”

Francis hummed his acknowledgement. James’s cheeks were flushed and he ground back into Francis’s enthusiasm. 

Francis finished lacing the corset and James stepped aside. Francis groaned, bereft. James was lovely like this: broad, square shoulders tapering into a delicate waist that flared out again into the exaggerated curve of his hips. Strength and beauty in equal measure. The private thrill of seeing him in naught but his underthings was almost more inspiring than seeing him in all his undressed glory. Almost. 

James slanted a smile over his shoulder as he reached for the dress.

“St. John will be here soon,” he said. “I’ll not have you making a mess of your trousers and then stalking about trying to find another suitable pair.”

“My cup runneth over with suitable pairs of trousers, James,” Francis groused, adjusting himself. “And _waistcoats_ in _blue_.” 

Francis caught the roll of James’s eyes in the mirror. James handed him the dress, and then plucked two springy petticoats from inside a drawer. He shook them out and stepped inside one and then the other, fastening them below his finely cinched waist. Francis held the dress open and in he stepped, one hand balanced on Francis’s shoulder. Francis pulled it up and James slid his arms into the sleeves, and then turned his back to him. With practiced fingers, Francis buttoned up the dress, and met his eyes in the mirror once more. Francis smoothed his hands over James’s shoulders and down his arms to come to rest over James’s belly, then set his nose against the pulse point in James’s neck and inhaled. James set his hands on Francis’s, tangled their fingers together. 

“Let’s get you dressed,” he said. “In sapphire.” 

Francis sighed but did not step back.

“Should we not choose a simple black and white, for contrast?” he asked. “What does the color matter if we shan’t see it?”

James turned around and Francis was obliged to tip his head up. James leaned down so his lips grazed Francis’s when he spoke.

“The sapphire is for me,” he said in a low voice, “to behold you as it accentuates the blue of your eyes and the pink of your cheeks, the silver of your hair and the dignity of your bearing.”

Francis’s breath was ragged, mingling with James’s. And then James broke the circle of Francis’s arms and swept towards the door.

“Come along,” he said. “We’ll be late for St. John.”

Francis staggered after him, willing the blood back to his brain.

In their garden was a wrought iron bench in the shade of a silver birch. St. John, a prancing type of fellow who made James laugh even as Francis gritted his teeth through every interaction, had proclaimed the tree and the bench “divine,” and set up his camera box before it.

“Just in time for the finest light of the day,” St. John said rapturously. “And you, darling, are positively radiant.” He kissed the air before both of James’s cheeks like a Frenchman. 

Francis’s face contorted. James stepped on his foot to keep him from saying anything. Francis grunted and let his mouth pinch into a deeper arch. 

“How do you want us, St. John?” James asked.

St. John was tall but thin as a reed, with narrow, sloping shoulders and tight blond curls which seemed to bounce about with a frenetic energy independent of his own. He was not much younger than James, Francis knew, but he seemed the type of man who would be rosy-cheeked and smooth into his dotage, having never graduated from boy to man. 

He swished about with his tripod and camera, but flitted a spindly hand towards the bench without looking up.

“I want you however you are with each other naturally,” he said. “If I must compose you, I will do so before the shot.”

Francis sat down and James sat to his right. Francis sat up straight and adjusted his frock coat. He leaned in towards James, who was straightening his dress. 

“How we are with each other naturally would straighten the curls clear off his head,” he whispered. 

James sniggered.

“Hush,” he whispered. “He would be too titillated by half.” 

Francis ventured a glance at the man in question, whose fleshless arse was bobbing about in their direction as he tinkered with his camera. Feeling bold, Francis slid his hands round James’s jaw and pulled him in for a kiss, deep and probing. James melted against him, thigh rucked over his, but he broke off, breathless. 

“Wicked,” he murmured.

“Let me get rid of him and I’ll have my way with you right here,” Francis said, hands clasped on James’s knees.

James snorted and pulled away.

“We’re very lucky to boast among our acquaintances a sympathetic daguerreotypist,” he said. “I’ll not have you scaring away our only chance to sit for a portrait as we are.”

“If this is meant to be a portrait of us as we are, then you should remain just so, and I should strip from all this finery and drape myself in snow and weeds.” 

Francis grinned at him, but James frowned. His hand came up and smoothed the lines from Francis’s forehead. 

“When will you see you as I see you,” he said softly.

There came a labored click which drew Francis’s attention, and then St. John popped up from behind the camera and tutted at himself. 

“Drat!” St. John said. 

“What is it?” James asked.

St. John’s hair quivered outward in a fit of pique, but the man himself only smiled brightly and clapped his hands. He bent to rummage about in his bag.

“No matter at all,” he said. “I brought extra plates for just such an occasion.”

Francis suppressed a sigh but it translated itself into a roll of his eyes. James pinched a bit of skin at Francis’s wrist. Francis arched an eyebrow at him.

“How long is this going to go on?” Francis whispered. “I thought you said these things had improved their timing.”

“The exposure, perhaps, but who can say about the device itself?” James said. “You agreed to do this for me. Don’t be difficult.”

“It merely seems a needless frivolity,” Francis said. He regretted the words as soon as they tripped off his tongue, because James pulled away in earnest, legs slipping off of Francis’s. He slid inches away and sat up stiffly. “James…”

“I’ll not be an inconvenience to you, Francis.”

“Do not say such things,” Francis said. He reached into James’s lap to set a hand on the knot of his twisting fingers. “I apologize. I will cease my griping.” James glanced at him, but Francis’s mouth flapped on without his volition. “Even though the sight of my visage beside yours will only mar your beauty.”

“Francis!”

Another click had them turning their heads in tandem toward St. John and his camera.

“Drat!” he cried.

James pulled his hands from Francis’s grasp.

“The only thing ‘marring my beauty’ is the way you break my heart, Francis!” he whispered furiously. 

“Come now, James…”

“Do you know why I want our portrait?” James said. “I thought I had explained sufficiently but had I done so, you would not be making sport of me now!”

“I’m not _making sport_ of—”

“You are,” James said. “Frivolities and fripperies to be tolerated with gritted teeth, that’s me.”

A lick of cold swept through Francis’s belly.

“James!” he said. “Stop this!”

“I had only wanted what other couples have so readily,” James said. “To sit beside one another unashamed. To capture a moment’s affection. To be as assured of our union as any other husband and wife. You’re right—this was foolish.”

James stood and made to stride away, but Francis caught his wrist and sank to his knees before him, lungs quavering. 

“I’m sorry,” Francis said. “I’m sorry, James. Stay. Sit for the portraits with me. Please. I want you to.”

A click. 

“Drat!” 

Above him, haloed by the diminishing sun, James’s eyes shut for a moment, and then he looked down at Francis again.

“Why do you always do such things?” he said. “Getting dressed or socializing or taking our bloody portraits, why must you make it all so damnably difficult?”

“I don’t know,” Francis said. He groped for James’s other hand and then held them both tightly. “I’m a curmudgeon. You know that.” 

“An answer fit to fertilize crops,” James said.

Francis turned James’s hands over in his and buried his face in them.

“I know,” he said into James’s palms. “I know, I’m sorry.”

James pulled him back up to the bench. He sat and fussed over the state of Francis’s trousers.

“We’ll have to hide your knees,” he said. When he met Francis’s eyes, his own were guarded, as if awaiting a blow. Francis had forgotten how it felt to have James look at him thus. It seared his heart.

“I am still waiting,” Francis said, and swallowed.

“For what?” James asked, voice a rumble.

“For you to come to your senses and find someone worthy of you.”

James’s brow knitted, mouth twisting on one side. Francis closed his eyes and looked away.

“An old man,” Francis went on, “discharged in disgrace from his only calling, misanthropic and disagreeable, barely tolerated at society gatherings but for the good opinion of a handful of kindred souls, you among them. When will James tire of me, I wonder? When will he regret wasting his earnings, his social capital, his time and his body and his affections on someone like me?” Francis forced himself to meet James’s eyes. “When will you look at these portraits with contempt for the man who sits beside you, and wish there were someone more amiable there?” 

James was shaking his head. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. He seized Francis’s hands and held them to his chest.

“A courageous man,” James said. “A man of passions and opinions, who has never met a challenge with half measures. A man who knows only how to give of his whole being. A man of duty and compassion and generosity. A man who comported himself with dignity even while enduring the Admiralty’s gravest insults. A man who came back to our rooms afterward with a full bottle of whiskey only to pour it out into the street. A man who shows me adoration with every touch, whose shrewd judgement allowed me to know myself at last. Who else could I possibly wish were beside me now?”

“Drat!”

James squeezed his eyes shut, face pinched. He turned toward St. John and frowned at him most severely, but Francis could not tear his eyes away. James turned back toward him and cupped his face. Kissed him, gentle and slow.

“I love you, Francis,” he said, low as a heartbeat. “I should say it more often—every time I feel it. A thousand times a day.”

“Almost as many times as you are irritated with me,” Francis said.

James exhaled a laugh and shook his head.

“I love you,” Francis said. “I did not know the workings of love before you.”

James kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him.

“Eureka!” St. John cried. “I think I’ve got it now.”

Francis groaned and drew away.

“How do you want us?” he asked.

St. John crossed one arm over his chest and braced his elbow against it, free hand cupping his own cheek. He squinted one eye at them as if they were a painting askew on the wall. Francis laid an arm across James’s shoulders and tried to relax the scowl that habitually came upon him when he looked at St. John. 

“James, tuck yourself in on the captain’s side,” St. John said. “Tilt your body, that’s it.”

James draped one knee over Francis’s, and through all the layers of his skirts, Francis grabbed it and held on. James glanced at him with heat in his eyes. Francis’s grimace smoothed into a sly half smile.

“Perhaps when we look upon our portrait in future, we will be reminded of the way I had you in the sunshine after the daguerreotypist left,” Francis said under his breath. He squeezed James’s knee. “Or perhaps we should bid him stay that he might take our portraits in congress.”

“ _Francis_ ,” James gasped.

“You’d like that,” Francis whispered. “A portrait of your arse bared to the world with my prick buried deep, stretching you wide. Lying about where anyone could find it.”

James’s breath hitched.

“You may look at each other slightly but try to look at me,” St. John said. “Especially you, Captain Crozier.”

A flush crept along the exposed skin of James’s chest and up his neck. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he tore his gaze from Francis and looked at St. John. Francis nudged his elbow against the growing column of James’s prick, hidden as it was in all his skirts. The blush stole across his cheeks, the sight of which stirred Francis’s blood.

“Very pretty,” he murmured.

“The sooner you do as St. John says, Francis, the sooner he will leave.”

“You wish not for him to stay then?” Francis asked, all innocence.

James squeezed the hand on his knee a hair too hard. Francis laughed and ground his prick into James’s leg. James glanced at him, barely contained excitement and outrage both plain in the parted lips, the flaring nostrils, the blazing eyes.

“Francis Crozier, you will be the death of me,” he said.

“Little deaths only, one hopes,” Francis said.

“Your chance to be rid of me with a big one passed in the Arctic, Francis.”

Francis barked out a laugh, and then heard a click and a little cheer.

“Lads, you’re making me green with envy!” St. John called out. 

Francis and James startled and turned in his direction. He smirked.

“All set,” he said. “I’ll have it to you within the week.” 

James slid his leg off of Francis’s lap and sat up properly, but neither smoothed his skirts nor stood. St. John was breaking down his set up and placing it all in a case.

“Thank you, St. John,” James said. “We’re unspeakably grateful, truly.”

“Think nothing of it,” St. John said. A smile that seemed more wistful than happy touched his lips. “It’s no more than any of us deserve, isn’t it?”

James did stand then, with no telltale bulges to embarrass him, and crossed over to St. John with his hands outstretched. St. John took them and held on.

“You’re a lucky man, James,” Francis heard him say in a low voice. “And your Captain Crozier luckier still.”

“You mustn’t despair, St. John,” James said, and St. John shook his head, forcing out a wide, sad smile.

“There are some loves no one else can hope to touch,” he said. He let go of James’s hands and half-bowed in Francis’s direction. “Farewell, Captain Crozier,” he said. “Thank you for being a most inspiring subject.”

Francis passed on his thanks and St. John took his leave. 

The waning sunlight rendered James’s dress rich and iridescent. His skin, pale but golden, looked as luminous as the moon. He turned, the strong lines of his body giving way to the elegant curves and slopes of the corset, the dress. His lips parted; there was a question in his eyes. Francis pressed a hand to his heart.

James reached out his hand. 

Four days later, the daguerreotype portrait was delivered by courier in a sealed box, heavier than Francis would have expected from St. John. Francis tried to wait for James, who was in town for a visit with Le Vesconte, lately between voyages, but the day grew thin and so did his tolerance for the box, sitting there and taunting him as it was.

Francis wrote to one of his sisters, and his friends Sir James and Lady Ann Ross. He made himself tea. He took a turn round the garden and pondered the winds of fortune which had blown him here, to a place of such peace and privilege, despite everything.

He thought about the box.

What if he truly was hideous in the images? La bête to James’s belle, as ever he feared. Better to know in advance, and be able to school his face into one of thoughtful neutrality before James, if he could not muster enthusiasm. 

He tore open the box and found nested within layer upon layer of muslin rags not one daguerreotype portrait but _five_.

There was a note.

_Dear ones,_

_My little blunders were not such poor showings after all—a bit of fun. I thought you might like to have them, even imperfect as they are. I do hope you might sit for me again, in that idyllic garden of yours. Perhaps something less formal than portraiture._

_I remain,_

_Ever yours,_

_Amos St. John Gladtree_

Francis lifted the first plate from its muslin bed. It was nestled into a protective frame, complete with cover. He flipped it open to reveal the image. There was a sheen upon it, silver and nearly ghostly, but sharp in focus and well-contrasted. James’s skirts, his legs, were draped over Francis’s lap and he cradled Francis’s bent head in his hands. The muscles of his arm swelled against the sleeve of his dress. Francis’s breath caught. His own face was obscured, as much by James’s hands as by the apparition of his own movement during the exposure, but James looked impossibly tender. He looked as though he held something precious. 

Francis swallowed, breath shallow, and picked up the next plate. Opened the cover. 

James had turned away from him now, expression troubled, and Francis was beseeching, hands tangled with James’s in the folds of his skirt. 

In the next, James was standing and Francis was knelt before him as a supplicant before a goddess. Artemis would look just so in a dress, Francis thought. Powerful and tall and proud. 

In the next, they were seated again, James pulling Francis’s hands to his chest. The camera had captured a moment’s naked adoration and rendered it into an infinite understanding, unbroken by the movement of time. Francis had not believed the camera could capture anything but a poor, one-dimensional facsimile of whatever stood before it, but here he held a little silver plate containing all the proof of his love—and James’s.

In the final image, the two of them were entangled again, James grinning at him in half profile as Francis’s own smile transformed his face. His eyes had nearly disappeared and the gap in his teeth was bared. He must have been laughing.

In all the portraits, Francis saw no beast lurking behind expensive clothes. The frock coat emphasized his broad chest and shoulders, his trim waist. With the waistcoat and cravat, he looked nearly posh. There was character in his face and softness in his eyes. He looked as though he were filled with light.

Had he ever looked thus? Even young. Even hopeful. Even with all his life spread before him, not yet plagued by disappointment and vice, Francis was sure he had never appeared thus. Peaceful. Happy. Overflowing with tender feeling. 

Perhaps in love, all creatures were beautiful.

James returned in the evening, loose of limb and of cravat. Francis was in the drawing room reading by lamplight when he came in and bent over the back of the sofa to drop a kiss into Francis’s hair.

“How was Captain Le Vesconte?” Francis said, watching with interest as James loosed the belt from his trousers and dropped it on the rug.

“Very well indeed,” James said, and pitched himself into Francis’s lap without ceremony. “He may be looking at an expedition around the Cape Colony to the Kingdom of Madagascar. He’s thrilled, as you can imagine.”

“Sounds warm,” Francis said. James hummed and settled into Francis’s chest, linking his hands together behind his neck. Francis rucked him up so he was secure and laid his cheek against his hair.

“I should clean my teeth,” James said, but did not move. He was adamant about not kissing Francis with the taste of spirits on his lips. It had been brandy tonight, and then a port for afters, if Francis’s nose told him true. 

“You don’t have to,” he said.

“I haven’t kissed you _all day_ ,” James said. He didn’t budge. Francis rubbed his arm. After a few moments of that, James roused himself and rose to his feet. “I’m going,” he said. “Do not move.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Francis said. 

James made to leave the drawing room but paused when he caught sight of the portraits lined up on the mantle. He strode towards them and picked them up one by one for inspection. Francis stood and came up behind him.

“Do you like them?” he asked. “I’m sorry; I hadn’t the patience to wait for you.”

James was staring down at the one in which Francis was laughing. He shook his head.

“I knew it,” he said. 

“Knew what?”

“That you would be devastating like this,” he said. “That St. John, for all his theatrics, would be able to capture you exactly.”

Francis peered at it around James’s shoulder. His eye was drawn ever to James. 

“And you look majestic,” he said. “Like the gods of old.”

James set the daguerreotype down and wrapped his arms around Francis’s neck. 

The portraits would have to be framed properly. They would be given pride of place on the mantle, on a wall, on side tables or James’s vanity. Francis might even consent to sitting—or standing, or playacting—for more of them. 

And someday, without their human subjects ever dreaming it possible, the portraits might find their way into the collection of a fine museum, where the past reaches inexorably into the future with an unflinching gaze. 

_We were happy. We were in love. We were just like you._

**End**

**Author's Note:**

> Gorgeous art by [amatpal!](https://amatlapal.tumblr.com/post/624660354416377856/commission-for-what-alchemy-of-their-lovely-fic)


End file.
